


kintsugi

by elektra



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-02 22:46:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8686300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elektra/pseuds/elektra
Summary: There is no mission except to be vigilant from all angles for the night. It is a welcome, easy break. Genji wonders if McCree has signed on just to see him, but this is a drastic jump to conclusions. They've only a few encounters in the past, but still enough to count as a friendly repertoire -- something likely not experienced often by either of them. No one else wants to be friends with Genji. Genji doesn't need friends.





	

McCree sidles up to him, quietly puff-puffing on the very butt of a cigar. _Puff puff_ , like a train from an old movie. McCree is a bit like an old movie, too. So strange, so odd to witness, but so warm and easy to romanticize, as though there was not a gun slung over his hip, as though one could live in the frayed fringes of his clothing forever and lose touch with modernity.

Losing touch -- Genji had much experience with it.

"Y'don't wanna join in?"

McCree refers offhandedly to the wine and cheese party the two observe from a small terrace above. Genji's padded fingers fiddle with a heavy red velvet runner spread over the marble balustrade. It's all very luxe, very luxe and very familiar.

"No," he replies simply at first. He isn't used to speaking to people, finds he doesn't want to anymore. "You should, though."

McCree snorts.

He's allowed to smoke here, a private venue with a host who can afford the risk of everything going up in flames, a risk increased with how McCree stomps out his smoke on the floor. Besides -- there is no mission except to be vigilant from all angles for the night. It is a welcome, easy break. Genji wonders if McCree has signed on just to see him, but this is a drastic jump to conclusions. They've only a few encounters in the past, but still enough to count as a friendly repertoire -- something likely not experienced often by either of them. No one else wants to be friends with Genji. Genji doesn't need friends.

"-- Nah. Ain't supposed to exist, technically, anyhow. You know."

Genji knows. He is not supposed to exist either.

But, yes, Blackwatch. The operative that shall not be named. Genji doesn't like it, the very thought of it. But he likes McCree. He suspects that many things in life have been swept under a rug because someone up there likes McCree.

“Wann’ a drink?”

“I don’t think that would be appropriate on duty.”

“Lil’ tonic’n’lime never hurt a good soul like you.”

Cute. A good soul. Very cute. Very naïve.

“No. You can get one for yourself.” Hadn’t Genji only just said something similar? He feels a surge of warmth, a spike of embarrassment that he’s become so inept at simply talking. Talking was never a simple thing before, McCree wasn’t worried about the vulnerability of his heart on his sleeve and anything besides home sweet home southern hospitality. Genji maneuvered minefields with his tongue.

“And leave you alone? Mm. Nah.”

Then, a lull in conversation. Awkward. It burns even stronger at the callous skin left at the base of his neck. Genji looks back down at a plushly decorated dance hall, where Jack Morrison is having a conversation with an ambassador and a replica Venus de Milo.

“I —“ he attempts, and at the same time,

“Y—“ from McCree.

Horrible. Genji’s hands clench at his sides, all mechanical and wrong and untested of their own strength. A nervous sweat forms under the sweeps of his dark hair that tuft onto his forehead (he is without his visor — somehow a scarred face is better for the morale of guests than no face at all, perhaps they think there is still more skin under his suit).

“You first.” McCree laughs. Genji shakes his head. “A’right. Candy?” From his pocket, he pulls out two purple wrapped lozenges.

“Is that it?”

“Both? You can have both. But I only got two.”

“— No. What? No. Is that what you wanted to say before?”

McCree unwraps one candy, sucks it between his teeth thoughtfully. The smell of grape cough syrup is so strong even from where Genji stands, it’s almost as if he can taste it too. Wants to kiss the taste out of McCree’s mouth. That’s a new thought. That’s a very troubling development.

“Damn.” It’s not an answer — McCree is spitting the candy back into the wrapper and tucking it behind a marble flower pot on the terrace floor. “C’mmander Reyes’s gonna make me bike that off.” His pretty freckled brown eyes back to Genji: “Wanted to ask if y’re okay.”

There is that silence again, but this time it isn’t so mortifying as it is somber. Genji doesn’t know how to answer it, set all straight backed and daze-eyed in an attempt to collect so much as a word to give in return.

“You know the pottery that is broken and then fixed with gold. I feel like that, but full of fool's gold. I do not catch light the same. There is no other way to describe it.”

McCree hums, seems to contemplate it, but then he only focuses again on the crowd, leans his elbows onto the wide rail, and presses in close beside Genji.

That’s all. Perhaps that’s all that needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> two things i love: open, unsatisfying endings and dabbling my little goblin hands into all my favourite ships.


End file.
